We are sharing the following message from the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv:
The Israel National Police advised the U.S. Embassy that a demonstration planned by members of the Ethiopian Israeli community is scheduled for today, Sunday, May 3, at15:00in the vicinity of haKirya, Kaplan Street, and Azrieli Towers in central Tel Aviv, near district government offices and the Israeli Defense Forces headquarters.
This demonstration has the potential of drawing large crowds. A similar protest held in Jerusalemon Thursdaylasted several hours and turned violent, resulting in injuries, arrests, and property damage. We advise U.S. citizens to avoid the area and to monitor local media for updates.
Even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and escalate into violence. You should avoid areas of demonstrations, and exercise caution if in the vicinity of any large gatherings, protests, or demonstrations.Review your personal security plans; remain aware of your surroundings, including local events; and monitor local news stations for updates. Maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to enhance your personal security and follow instructions of local authorities.
The demonstration in Jerusalem on Thursday was the result of the publication on the internet of a video in which police in Holon (a suburb of Tel Aviv) beat an Ethiopian soldier who attempted to enter an area that had been cordoned off due to the presence of a suspicious object. Suspicions of racial motivations seem to be universal these days....
The link goes to this Haaretz article (who else in Israel would publish such a thing?). But when you read the story, blaming Israel doesn't exactly add up.
At least one of the three asylum seekers, T., was held in the Holot
detention center in the Negev before leaving Israel. T.'s relative,
Mesi, told Haaretz that the family identified him in the ISIS video. "He
appears in the video and in the photographs, definitely," she said. "He
had been in Israel since the end of 2007. He decided to go back after
the [Israeli] Ministry of Interior told him he would be better off."
According to Mesi, T. "went back to Uganda or
Rwanda – I think Rwanda – where they are not accepted. From there he
went on to Sudan, and from Sudan to Libya." She said that he was not
able to remain in Libya, and tried to reach Europe by boat. "I
understood that the boat was returned to Libya," she said, "where they
were arrested. Rumors have it that the extreme Islamic group snatched
them from the jail itself."
Mesi said she tried to dissuade T. from going to a
third county. "They told him he would be better off if he flies. I asked
him not to. He didn't tell us he had signed [papers] to leave." She
added that she and other friends of T. tried to tell him things could
change for the better, "that [asylum seekers] would be released from
Holot."
Mesi added that she did not keep in touch with T. after
he left Israel, but received updates from his brother, who resides in
Norway. "He told me that T. arrived in Sudan and Libya and that he
hadn't spoken to him in a long time because he was in Libyan prison."
She said T.'s brother saw the images of ISIS' execution, but did not
think his brother was among the group of Ethiopian Christians.
So why is Israel being blamed? Who sent the boat back to Libya? Why isn't Uganda or Rwanda or Sudan blamed? Why isn't the United States blamed because President Hussein Obama led from behind to depose the Gadhaffi's? Why isn't ISIS blamed?
But wait, it gets worse. There's this hit job from the Daily Beast (the title is enough to tell you where this article is headed).
At least three of the victims were Eritrean refugees who had been
deported from Israel. An Eritrean named Mesi Fashiya who works as a
translator for The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, an Israeli NGO
that advocates for Israel’s estimated 46,000 refugees, identified the
victims.
Sadly, one was her relative.
Fashiya told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz
that her cousin, identified as “T.,” was deported from Israel “back to
Uganda or Rwanda—I think Rwanda—where they are not accepted. From there
he went on to Sudan, and from Sudan to Libya.”
“I recognized my relative, T., from the photos published by ISIS that
appeared on Facebook before the video was released,” Fashiya told +972 magazine.
T. was sent abroad in a program that Israel initiated to deal with
its burgeoning refugee problem. In a brochure obtained by The Daily
Beast, the Israeli Population and Immigration Authority “offers foreign
nationals from [Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, and Guinea
Conakry], who entered Israel illegally, the option to leave the country
voluntarily, in a fair and dignified manner.”
In the brochure,
Israel offers to assist in the “arrangement of travel documents,
purchase of airline tickets, and a financial grant in the amount of
$3,500 per person, including children,” to asylum seekers who agree to
leave.
While this may seem a fair deal, Israel’s record with asylum seekers and migrant workers is, for lack of a better word, awful.
Excuse me, but since when is little Israel responsible for solving the world's problems? Until ISIS came in, these people were economic refugees - what country in the world grants asylum to economic refugees? (Answer: The United States under Obama, but there are a lot of people who are unhappy about that, and it will likely change in 2017). The financial grant is quite generous for that part of the world. And note that Libya is not one of the countries on the list. These people could have gone to Eritrea or Ethiopia where they came from.
Funny how Israel is the only country blamed for this. Coincidence? I think not.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation can confirm that it has not located any
evidence in Nelson Mandela's private archive (which includes his 1962
diary and notebook) that he interacted with an Israeli operative during
his tour of African countries in that year. Both the diary and the
notebook were used as evidence against him in the 1963-1964 Rivonia
Trial for sabotage.
In 1962 Mr Mandela received military training from Algerian freedom
fighters in Morocco and from the Ethiopian Riot Battalion at Kolfe
outside Addis Ababa, before returning to South Africa in July 1962. In
2009 the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s senior researcher travelled to
Ethiopia and interviewed the surviving men who assisted in Mandela’s
training – no evidence emerged of an Israeli connection.
But the Haaretz report was based on a letter in Israel's state archives, which would not be in Mandela's diary, and there was good reason to keep the training secret and to ask Mandela to keep it secret: So as not to endanger South Africa's large Jewish community.
Mandela received weapons training from Mossad agents in Ethiopia
Haaretz reports that Mossad agents in Ethiopia gave weapons training to Nelson Mandela and tried to turn him into a Zionist. The training took place in 1962, before he was arrested by the apartheid regime in South Africa.
These revelations are from a document in the Israel State Archives
labeled “Top Secret.” The existence of the document is revealed here for
the first time.
It also emerges that the Mossad operatives attempted to encourage Zionist sympathies in Mandela.
Mandela,
the father of the new South Africa and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate,
led the struggle against apartheid in his country from the 1950s. He was
arrested, tried and released a number of times before going underground
in the early 1960s. In January 1962, he secretly and illegally fled
South Africa and visited various African countries, including Ethiopia,
Algeria, Egypt and Ghana. His goal was to meet with the leaders of
African countries and garner financial and military support for the
armed wing of the underground African National Congress.
A
letter sent from the Mossad to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem
reveals that Mandela underwent military training by Mossad operatives in
Ethiopia during this period. These operatives were unaware of Mandela’s
true identity. The letter, classified top secret, was dated October 11,
1962 – about two months after Mandela was arrested in South Africa,
shortly after his return to the country.
The
Mossad sent the letter to three recipients: the head of the Africa Desk
at the Foreign Ministry, Netanel Lorch, who went on to become the third
Knesset secretary; Maj. Gen. Aharon Remez, head of the ministry’s
department of international cooperation and the first Israel Air Force
commander; and Shmuel Dibon, Israel’s ambassador to Ethiopia between
1962 and 1966 and former head of the Middle East desk at the Ministry.
The
subject line of the letter was “the Black Pimpernel,” in English, the
term the South African media was already using for Mandela. It was based
on the Scarlet Pimpernel, the nom de guerre of the hero of
Baroness Emma Orczy’s early 20th century novel, who saved French
noblemen from the guillotine during the French Revolution.
the military from the island country of Fiji who will replace the
Austrian peacekeepers on the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF)
stationed on the Golan Heights.
The contingent will be made up of 300 soldiers representing one-twelfth of the Fijan armed forces.
Fiji has been involved in a peacekeeping role before. In 1996, Charles Krauthammer wrote about what Fiji's earlier involvement in peacekeeping meant:
The Fijians episode is only the most recent demonstration of the
uselessness of the U.N.'s acting on its own as peacemaker. The most
dramatic and tragic demonstration of this truth occurred not in Lebanon,
nor even Bosnia, but Rwanda, from which the U.N. withdrew last April
after ignominiously standing by while the worst mass murder since World
War II occurred right before its eyes.
These operations are a direct consequence of the grandiosity of a U.N.
apparatus that refuses to acknowledge its unsuitability to any kind of
active warfare, its dearth of military expertise, its abject lack of
independence, and its fractured command and troop structure. It is a
disgrace that these forces are deployed around the world in places where
they do more harm than good.
An expensive disgrace. It costs the U.N. about $ 130 million a year to
keep UNIFIL going. It has cost more than $ 2.5 billion since 1978. Why
not withdraw the troops and give the money directly to war victims on
both sides of the Israel-Lebanon frontier for reconstruction and
compensation? And let the good Fijians go home.
What's true for UNIFIL, where the UN's soldiers did nothing to protect
Israel is equally true for UNDOF. If the UNDOF troops served any purpose
they wouldn't be running at the first sign of trouble! In recent weeks
rebels have kidnapped UNDOF peacekeepers and they've been the target of occasional gunfire. And of course the peacekeepers are doing nothing even as Syrian rebels threaten to "liberate" the Golan.
But trace the Nile about 1,400 miles upstream and there’s a rising
colossus that threatens to upset a millennia-old balance. There, in the
Ethiopian highlands, one of the world’s largest dams is taking shape.
For Ethiopia, the dam promises abundant energy and an escape from a
seemingly permanent spot in the lowest rungs of the world’s human
development index. But for Egypt, the consequences could be dire: a
nationwide water shortage in as little as two years that causes crop
failures, power cuts and instability resonating far beyond even the
extraordinary tumult of the recent past. ...
To Egyptians accustomed to thinking of their country as a powerhouse of
the Arab world, the idea of bowing to a historically weaker African
rival has been a sobering reminder of their nation’s diminished clout.
It has also been an early test for the year-old government of President
Mohamed Morsi — one that critics say he has badly mishandled.
By now you've probably read that the traffic mapping app, Waze is being
sold to Google. But what's especially interesting is why the reported
deal with Facebook fell through:
What perhaps was different about Google's offer was a willingness to
allow Waze to return its own identity (as an R&D firm, regardless of
what the company's new owners do with the technology Waze is continuing
to develop).
As Waze CEO Noam Bardin put it in a blogpost announcing the sale (the
post was published at the same time Google VP Brian McClendon announced
the sale in his own blogpost): "Nothing practical will change here at
Waze. We will maintain our community, brand, service and organization –
the community hierarchy, responsibilities and processes will remain the
same. Our employees, managers, founders and I are all committed to our
vision for many years to come."
McClendon's post also explicitly noted: "The Waze product development team will remain in Israel."
Part of that vision is keeping Waze independent – and in Israel. Waze
executives, among them company President Uri Levine, have many times
stated that they planned to keep the company here, and saw no reason to
move elsewhere. According to a company source, Waze executives,
anticipating a buyout at some point, long ago decided that they wanted
to be sure employees were treated fairly if an acquisition took place.
(This writer says that keeping Waze in Israel was not a dealbreaker. However staying in Israel was important to Waze management.)
I always felt that I was fortunate enough to experience two paradises -
Israel and America! I have a very close relationship to Israel. It is
still a young country which has faced numerous difficulties in its short
existence. However, I am hopeful that this nascent nation, despite its
geographic location and problems both internally and externally, will
continue to grow and be a positive force for good and democracy in the
region.
If you're not looking for these sentiments, you won't find them. In much
of the MSM, Israel is an object of scorn and derision. Those who
condemn Israel, or are, at least, ashamed of it are considered the norm
and worthy of attention. It's nice to see that there is a perception of
Israel uncontaminated by such influences.
Egypt is threatening Ethiopia with war over the Millenium dam, which is being built by Ethiopia across the Nile River.
Egypt does not want war with Ethiopia but will keep
"all options open", Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi said on Monday, turning up the heat
in a dispute over a giant dam Addis Ababa is building across the Nile.
In
a televised speech to cheering Islamist supporters, Morsi voiced understanding
for the development needs of poorer nations upstream in the Nile basin, but
rammed home in emotive language that Egyptians will not accept any reduction in
the flow of the river on which their civilisation has been based for
millennia.
Bellicose rhetoric, including talk of military action by
Egyptian politicians last week, had raised concerns of a "water war" between
Africa's second and third most populous states.
But Morsi, for whom the
dispute provides an opportunity to rally Egyptians behind him after a divisive
first year in power, also appeared to leave room for compromise.
He did
not renew an Egyptian call - flatly rejected by Ethiopia last week - for work to
stop at the dam but said further study on its impact was
needed.
...
"Egypt's water security cannot be violated in
any way," Morsi said. "As head of state, I confirm to you that all options are
open." He later added: "We are not calling for war, but we will never permit our
water security ... to be threatened." Drawing on an old Egyptian song about the
Nile, he said: "If it diminishes by one drop then our blood is the alternative."
Cairo had no objection to "development projects in the Nile Basin states", he
added, "but on condition that those projects do not affect or damage Egypt's
legal and historical rights".
Egypt, whose fast-growing population of 84
million uses almost all of the Nile's supply that reaches them to meet their
needs, cites colonial-era treaties guaranteeing it the lion's share of the water
to defend its position. Ethiopia, the second most populous state in Africa, says
those claims are outdated.
Other African states south of the historic
frontier of the Muslim Arab world - notably Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi,
Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo - are also anxious to develop the water
resources of the Nile Basin.
And guess who is going to finance this war if Egypt decides to prosecute it? Yes, that would be you, American Taxpayer.
Ethiopian-born Miss Israel to dine with Obama, but he may not like what he hears
At the insistence of a White House advance team, 22-year old Yityish Aynaw, the first Ethiopian-born Miss Israel, has been invited to a state dinner with President Obama while he is in Israel next week. But the President may not like everything he hears from her. This is from the first link.
The mass circulation Yedioth Ahronot newspaper reported that Ms Aynaw – who
emigrated to Israel from Ethiopia with her Jewish grandparents after the
death of her mother when she was 12 – would have the chance to exchange
pleasantries with the president.
She told the newspaper that Mr Obama's status as America's first black
president had inspired her to make him the subject of her high school
graduation essay.
"For me, he is a role model who broke down barriers, a source of
inspiration that proves that every person really can reach any height,
regardless of their religion, race or gender," she said.
The event will have symbolic resonance for Israel's 120,000-plus Jews of
Ethiopian origin, who have protested that they are subject to frequent
racial discrimination from their co-religionists.
Last month, the Israeli health ministry announced an investigation into
allegations – first made in a television documentary – that Ethiopian women
immigrants were forcibly given contraceptive injections to reduce birth
rates within the community.
The majority of Israel's Ethiopian-origin community emigrated to the country,
encouraged by the Israeli government, in two successive waves, in 1984 and
1991.
Mr Obama's desire to meet Ms Awnay is in stark contrast to a snub delivered to
Israel's only settlement university, Ariel, in the West Bank.
Student representatives from the university have been pointedly excluded from
the president's keynote speech at Jerusalem's International Convention
Centre, drawing angry criticism from the pro-settler Jewish Home party, led
by Naftali Bennett. Student representatives from all other universities in
Israel have been invited.
Miss Israel’s YouTube video, which is a clip of an interview aired on
Israeli Ch 2 news on Wednesday, March 13, reveals something quite
interesting, but utterly non-salacious.
The interviewer asks Aynaw, “What will you tell Obama when you meet him?”
She answers, “That he is a role model for me, and second, that he should free Pollard.”
Aynaw explains that she was very active while in high school – she
was head of the student council – working on many different activities
to help free Pollard. She explained to the interviewer that she knows
the story very well, and that if she has the opportunity, “lama lo? (why
not?)”
So far there has been no response from the White House.
Let's go to the videotape.
I hope that she's young enough and idealistic not to back down. But I suspect that she will be intimidated not to say anything.
Another example of Israeli apartheid: Ethiopian immigrant becomes police officer
Here's another example of Israeli apartheid: Ethiopian immigrant Asher Ayesa is about to become a police officer. Here's his story.
Ayesa's journey to Israel began when he was two years old and was carried on his mother's shoulders from his native Ethiopia. Around a month later, when they arrived at the border with Sudan, they were suspected by the Sudanese Army of being Jews. To stay alive, his family claimed they were migrant workers. This explanation was not accepted, and 55 members of Ayesa's traveling group were put in prison, where Ayesa stayed until he was seven years old.
"They imprisoned us in a cement building with an iron door and there were limited hours during which we could go outside," Ayesa said.
In 1991, Ayesa and his family finally arrived in Israel and settled in Beersheba. He later enlisted in the Israel Defense Forces' Sayeret Maglan unit. After his release from the army, he collected donations and voluntarily established a club for teens in the neighborhood in which he grew up, in cooperation with the Beersheba municipality.
Currently, Ayesa is part of a police basic training course, which he joined to be an investigator and continue his work with teens.
For Ayesa, the final weeks of the course are not easy. As a former prisoner in Sudan, he can understand the feelings of foreign migrants in Israel and is aware that as a police officer he may be part of units arresting them and deporting them from Israel.
"Despite how the Sudanese treated me and my family, every single human being needs to be treated with respect," he said.
I wonder if any of Ayesa's jailers are among those now trying to stay in Israel. Hmmm.
Obama paying for African illegals to defecate in Israel's streets, but much of the money is disappearing
In case you're wondering why many Israelis aren't happy about our illegal immigrants, take a close look at the picture in the top left corner of this post. It was taken on the streets of Tel Aviv....
The Israeli web site Kr8 (link in Hebrew) reports that the Obama administration is sending between $1,000 and $2,000 per month per illegal immigrant to Israel via the United Nations. Why this money is being sent via the UN is not clear, but what is clear is that a lot of it is being skimmed off the top. Kr8 reports that Israel is paying NIS 1,500 per month for rent, and approximately NIS 180-200 per month for health insurance. Both items should cost a lot more than that.
Moreover, at current exchange rates, $1,000 is approximately NIS 3,850 and $2,000 is double that. An awful lot of money is disappearing. Where is it going? And why is Israel accepting money from the US (and the UN) rather than stopping the inflow of illegal immigrants?
But it gets worse. Kr8 also reports that American tax free foundations (it names the Ford Foundation but there are presumably others) are donating money to the New Israel Fund, which is organizing the illegals. You know, community organizing. Kr8 goes on to speculate about connections between the Ford Foundation and the CIA, and the possibility that the illegals may be used in the future to foment a rebellion against Israel.
What is fairly well known is that the police bring the 'refugees' from the Egypt/Israel border, right up, all the way to south Tel Aviv, the central bus station. But that's not all. What else is now coming to light, is that with these funds, these illegals are somehow opening businesses and will soon start their own newspaper!
There is further testimony in the audio interview in which it is alleged government inspectors frequently close down illegal Jewish-owned businesses, but not the illegal businesses belonging to the illegal immigrants.
This financial improbability of all this likely hints towards further sources of funding, which as yet are undetected.
The interview to which he refers is with Meir Turgeman. It's in Hebrew, but I know I have some Israeli readers, so I'm putting a clickable link to it below.
Finally, for those of you who think that those who oppose having the illegals here are racists, we have absorbed thousands of Ethiopian Jews over the last 25 years, and none of us would propose sending them back.
This is the first live post since the holiday ended, and I want to remind you all that I am online because in Israel we only have one day of holiday, and not two like in the rest of the World.
The Syrian newspaper Tishreen is reporting that the 'Naqsa day' attempts to breach Syria's borders with Israel are 'just the start' of efforts that will include bringing hundreds of thousands of Syrians to attempt to breach the border with the 'Zionist entity.'
According to the article, Israel should be ready for more than 600,000 refugees to march across the border, ostensibly to return to their homes in the Golan. "The Palestinian refugees who gathered at the border were part of a mass march of progress for the right of return," the article said.
...
Another article in the same paper claimed that Israel should know that mass marches are approaching, and does not have grounds for deterrence. "Israel can not even use the pretext of self-defense, for what it calls its borders," the article says.
Actually, under international law, Israel can defend its borders, even if they are not recognized as such by the 'international community.'
The question is whether a state can forcibly protect land that it peacefully possesses even if it lacks sovereignty over the land. The answer is yes. The classic recent example is the Ethiopian-Eritrean war of 1998. According to the arbitral rulings, the chief disputed territory (Badme) was sovereign territory of Eritrea, but it was possessed by Ethiopia both before and after the war. Eritrea initiated hostilities to recover Badme. The arbitrator ruled that Eritrea had violated international law by using force against the Ethiopia in the territory because Ethiopia was in peaceful possession of the territory before the war, even though Ethiopia never had sovereignty.
There is a cease-fire agreement between Syria and Israel from 1974 and it establishes the lines where Israel and Syria have control.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
